Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91
Vol. XXVI No. 18, January 1-15, 2017
Our Readers write
In Library of Congress
Further to the letter of Dr. G.
Sundaram (MM, November 16th), I offer this piece of information regarding US Library of Congress. An office of it functions in New Delhi (US Library of Congress Office, American Centre, 24, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110 001) and purchases not only English books, but also selectively chosen books in all regional Indian languages. I was lucky enough to have a book chosen. It is titled in Tamil Multifaceted personality of V.O.C.
Dr. Kannan S
Block II, Flat 1E
I Ramaniyam Flats
4th East Street
East Kamaraj Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai 600 041
Remembering Raja
I vividly remember P.
Rajarathinam appearing for an interview for selection to an M.B.A. course, armed with letters from two State Ministers. Dr. G.R. Damodaran asked him cynically why he wanted to pursue the course when he was so well-connected. He could easily get a government job. Raja-rathinam replied that he would not serve any other master but be not only self-employed but offer jobs to many others. GRD was happy with his answer and he was admitted.
I don’t know whether he completed the course, but he called on me one day saying that he had promoted a concern named ABC… telling people that everything under the sun would be available in the business. Some four or five young men joined him. He left ABC to them and entered several other fields mentioned in the article.
To me, who was a member of the Selection Committee, he appeared to be a highly ambitious person or someone to doubt.
S.S. Rajagopalan
30, Kamarajar Street
Chennai 600 093
Know ye all, ‘Dead Man’s Chest’!
MMM’s item After the BMK funeral (MM,December) mentions, incidentally, that “It brought to mind, for no rhyme or reason the lines: Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. For that matter, even those lines don’t have any rhyme or reason and so there.”
Unlike the proverbial cat, I have so far not been killed by my unending curiosity, which prompted me to check on the Internet for the origin of that ‘fictional sea song’ originally from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Treasure Island (1883).
Please find below what appears to be the origin:
‘The mystery of the pirates’ song, “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum,” from Robert Louis
Stevenson’s Treasure Island, has been solved. Until now, its meaning has baffled readers, and Stevenson himself never offered any explanation.
The answer is provided in Geographical, published by the Royal Geographical Society, by an explorer who says ‘Dead Man’s Chest’ is part of the British Virgin Islands.
In the early 1700s, says Quentin van Marle , the pirate Edward Teach – known as ‘Blackbeard’ – punished a mutinous crew by marooning them on Dead Man’s Chest, an island 250 yards square surrounded by high cliffs and without water or landing places. Each was given a cutlass and a bottle of rum, and Teach’s hope was that they would kill each other. But when he returned at the end of 30 days, he found that 15 had survived.
This would explain in full the verse:
Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
There is no food on the island, van Marle says, which is occupied by pelicans, lizards, non-poisonous snakes and mosquitoes. It has never been developed for tourism because of its inaccessibility.
Dead Chest Island is to the northeast of Peter Island. It is described as “eerie and infamous” in a local calendar. van Marle, who discovered the true story by studying local history and folklore, was himself marooned on it in 1969 when he lost his outboard motor while on a scuba trip.
This article was written in the mid-1990’s byAdrian Berry, who was Science Correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. It has been kindly brought to our attention by LJS Trust supporter Barry Wright.’
On an allied note, this column of MM ends with a ‘Tailpiece – Forget the demonetisation. Chennai is looking at a dewatered situation’.
It must surely be the height of irony that immediately after it, Varuna came along in the form of ‘Vardhan’ to water/flood the city.
– N. Narayanan
meenakshi61@singnet.com.sg
